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No. 12. 



ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. 



DISUNION. 

(Pa /- 

ADDRESS 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY; 



F. JACKSON'S LETTER 



PRO-SLAVERY CHARACTER 



CONSTITUTION. 



NEW YORK: 

AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

' 142 NASSAU STREET. 

1845. 



Colic ckd seU 



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iJosTON : 

PRINTKI) BV liAVII) II. Kf.A, 
NO. 37, lOllNHII.I . 



/ 



ADDRESS 

OF THE 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

O F 

THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY 

TO THE 

Friends of Freedom and Emancipation in the U. States. 



At the Tenth Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 
lield iu the city of New- York, JMay 7th, 1844, — alter grave delibera- 
tion, and a long and earnest discussion, — it was decided, by a vote of 
nearly three to one of the members present, that fidelity to the cause 
of human freedom, hatred of oppression, sympathy for those who are 
held in chains and slavery in this republic, and allegiance to God, 
require that the existing national compact should be instantly dis- 
solved ; that secession from the government is a religious and political 
duty ; that the motto inscribed on the banner of Freedom should be, 
NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS ; that it is impracticable for 
tyrants and the enemies of tyranny to coalesce and legislate together 
for the preservation of human rights, or the promotion of the interests 
of Liberty; and that revolutionary ground should be occupied by all 
those who abhor the thought of doing evil that good may come, and 
who do not mean to compromise the principles of Justice and 
Humanity. 

A decision involving such momentous consequences, so well calcu- 
lated to startle the public mind, so hostile to the established order of 
things, demands of us, as the official representatives of the American 
Society, a statement of the reasons which led to it. This is due not 
only to the Society, but also to the country and the world. 

It is declared by the American people to be a self-evident truth, 
" that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed BY THEIR 
CREATOR with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
LIBERTY^ and the pursuit of liappiness." It is further maintained 
by them, t!hat " all governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed ;" that " whenever any form of government 
becomes destructive of human rights, it is the right of the peo|)le to 
alter or to abolish it, and institute a new government, laying its foun- 
dation on such princi|)les, and organizing its powers in such form, as 
to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." 
These doctrines the i)atriots of 1776 sealed with their blood. They 
would not brook even the menace of oppression. They held that 
there should be no delay in resisting, at whatever cost or peril, the 



first encroachments of power on their liberties. Appealing to the 
great Ruler of the universe for the rectitude of their course, they 
pledged to each other "their lives, their fortunes and their sacred 
honor," to conquer or perisii in tlieir struggle to be free. 

For the example which they set to all people subjected to a despotic 
sway, and the sacrifices which they made, tlieir descendants cherish 
their memories with gratitude, reverence their virtues, honor their 
deeds, and glory in their triumphs. 

It is not necessary, therefore, for ns to prove that a state of slavery 
is incom|)atible with the dictates of reason and humanity; or that it 
is lawful to throw off' a government which is at war with the sacred 
rights of marikind. 

We regard this as indeed a solemn crisis, which requires of every 
mail sobriety of thought, |)rophetic forecast, independent judgment, 
invincible determination, and a sound heart. A revolutionary step 
is one that should not be taken hastily, nor followed under the 
influence of impulsive imitation. To know what spirit they are ot^ — 
whetiier they have counted the cost of the warfare — what are the 
princijiles they advocate — and how they are to achieve their object — 
is the first duty of revolutionists. 

But, while circnmsjiection and |)rudence are excellent qualities in 
every great emergency, they become the allies of tyranny whenever 
they restrain prompt, bold and decisive action against it. 

We charge upon the present national compact, that it was formed 
at the exjiense of human liberty, by a profiigate surrender of principle, 
and to this hour is cemented with human blood. 

We charge upon the American Constitution, that it contains pro- 
visions, and enjoins duties, which make it unlawful for freemen to 
take the oath of allegiance to it, because they are expressly designed 
to favor a slaveholding oligarchy, and, consequently, to make one 
portion of the people a prey to another. 

We charge upon the existing national government, that it is an 
insu[iportahle despolisu), wielded by a power which is superior to all 
legal and constitutional restraints — equally imiisposed and imable to 
protect the lives or liberties of the people — the |)roj) and safeguard 
of American slavery. 

These charges we proceed briefly to establish : 

1. It is admitted by all men of intelliirence, — or if it l)e denied in 
any <piarter, the records of om* national history settle the question 
beyond doubt, — that the American Union was eftected by a guilty 
compromise between the free and slaveholding Stales ; in other 
words, bv inmiolaling the colored population on the altar of slavery, 
by depriving the North of ecpial rights and privileges, and by incor- 
porating the slave systetii into the government. In the ex|»ressive 
and pertinent language of scriptme, it was " u covenant with death, and 
an agrceujent with hell " — null and void before (Jod, from the first 
hour of its inception — the framers of which were recreant to duty, 
and the bU|»porlers of which are ecjually guilty. 



It was pleaded at tlie time of tlie adoption, it is pleaded now, that, 
without such a compromise there could have been no union ; 
that, without union, the colonics would have become an easy ()rev to 
the mother country; and, hence, that it was an act of necessity, 
deplorable indeed when viewed alone, l)Ut absolutely indisiiensal)le to 
the safety of the republic. 

To this we reply : The plea is as i)rofligate as the act was tyran- 
nical. It is the Jesuitical doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means. 
It is a confession of sin, but the denial of any j^uilt in its perpetration. 
It is at war with the govenunent of (Jod, and subversive of the Itjun- 
dations of morality. It is to make lies our refuge, and under false- 
hood to hide ourselves, so that we may escape the overflowing 
scourge. "Therefore, thus saitli the Lord God, Judgment will I lay 
to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall 
sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the 
hiding place." Aloreover, "because ye trust in oi)pression and per- 
verseness, and stay thereon; therefore this inicpiity shall be to you as 
a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking 
Cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the breaking 
of the potter's vessel that is brokeii in pieces ; he shall not spare." 

This plea is suflSciently broad to cover all the oppression and vil- 
lany that the sun has witnessed in his circuit, since God said, "Let 
there be light." It assumes that to be practicable, which is impossi- 
ble, namely, that there can be freedom with slavery, union with 
injustice, and safety with bloodguiltiness. A union of virtue with 
pollution is the triumph of licentiousness. A partnership between 
right and wrong, is wholly wrong. A compromise of the principles 
of Justice, is the deification of crime. 

Better that the American Union had never been formed, than that 
it should have been obtained at such a frightful cost ! If they were 
guilty who fashioned it, but who could not foresee all its frightful 
consequences, how much more guilty are they, who, in fidl view of 
all that has resulted from it, clamor for its perpetuity! If it was 
sinful at the commencement, to adopt it on the ground of escaping a 
greater evil, is it not equally sinftd to swear to supjiort it for the 
same reason, or until, in process of time, it be purged from its cor- 
ruption ? 

The fact is, the compromise alluded to, instead of effecting n union, 
rendered it impracticable; unless by the term union we are to under- 
stand the absolute reign of the slaveholding power over the whole 
country, to the prostration of Northern rights. In the just use of 
words, the American Union is and always has been a sham — an 
imposture. It is an instrument of op|)ression unsurpassed in the 
criminal history of the world. How then can it be innocently sus- 
tained ? It is not certain, it is not even probable, that if it had not 
been adopted, the mother country would have recoiupiered the colo- 
nies. The spirit that would have chosen danger in preference to 
crime, — to perish with justice rather than live with dishonor, — to 
1* 



dare and siifier wliatever niiglit betide, ratlier than sacrifice the rights 
of one hiiiiiau beinjr, — coiihl never have been subjugated by any 
mortal power. Surely it is |)a}ing a i)oor tribnte to tlie valor and 
devotion of our revolutionary fathers in the cause of liberty, to say 
that, if they had sternly refused to sacrifice their principles, they 
would have fallen an easy prey to the despotic power of England. 

II. The American Constitution is the exponent of the national 
compact. We affirm that it is an instrument which no man can 
innocently bind himself to support, because its anti-republican and 
anti-christian requirements are e.\|)licit and j)eren)ptory ; at least, so 
ex|)licit that, in regard to all the clauses pertaining to slavery, they 
liave been uniformly understood and enforced in the same way, by 
all tlie courts and by all the i)eople ; and so peremptory, that no indi- 
vitlual interpretation or authority can set them aside with impunity. 
It is not a ball of clay, to be njoidded into any shape that |)arty con- 
trivance or caprice may choose it to assutne. It is not a Ibrm of 
words, to be interpreted in any manner, or to any extent, or lor the 
accomplishment of any purpose, that individuals in office under it 
may determine. It means precisely what those icho framed and adopted 
it meant — nothing more, nothi>g less, as a matter of bargain and 
compromise. Even if it can be construed to mean something else, 
without violence to its language, such construction is not to be toler- 
ated against the wishes of either party. No just or honest use of it can 
be made, in opposition to the plain intention of its fran.ers, except to 
declare the contract at an end, and to refuse to sirve under it. 

To tiie argument, that the words " slaves " and " slavery " are not 
to be found in the Constitution, and thereibre that it was never 
intended to give any protection or countenance to the slave system, 
it is sufficient to re|)ly, that though no such words are contained in 
that instrument, other words were used, intelligently and s|)pcifically, 
TO MEET TUE NECESSITIES OF SLAVERY; and that tliesc Were adopted 
in good faith, to be observed until a constitutional change could be ejf'tcted. 
On this point, as to the design ol" certain provisions, no intelligent 
man can honestly entertain a doidn. If it be objected, that though 
these provisions were meant to cover slavery, jet, as they can fairly 
be interpreted to mean something exactly the reverse, it is allowable 
to give to them such an interpretation, especially as the cause of freedom 
will thereby be promoted — we reply, that this is to advocate liaud and 
violence toward one of the contracting parties, whose co-operation was 
secured only by an express agreement and understanding between them 
both, in regard to the clauses alluded to; and that such a construction, 
if enforced by pains and penalties, would niKpicslionably lead to a 
civil war, in which the aggrieved party would justly claim to have 
been betrayed, and robbed ol" their consiitulinnal ri;;hts. 

Again, if it i)e said, that those clauses, being immoral, are null and 
voiil — we reply, it is true they are not to be obsirved ; but it is also 
true that they are jiortions of an insiniincnt, the .support of which, 
AS A WHOLE, is rcciuiied by oath or uffirmatioii ; and, therefore, 6eco««e 



they are immoral, and because of this obligation to entorce 
IMMORALITY, iio oiie ciii innocciitly swear to s'i|i|)ort the Constitution. 

Again, if it be objected, that the Constitution was formed by the 
people of the United States, in order to establish justice, to promote 
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves 
and their posterity ; and therefore, it is to be so construed as to har- 
monize with tiiese objects ; we reply, again, that its language is not to 
be interpreted in a sense which neither of the contracting parties understood, 
and which would frustrate every design of their alliance — to wit, 
union at the expense of the colored population of the conntrij. Morecjver, 
nothing is more certain than that the preandjle alluded to never 
included, in the minds of those who framed it, those who icere then 
pining in bondage — for, in that case, a general e(nancipation of the 
slaves would have instantly l)een proclaimed throughout the United 
States. The words, "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity," assuredly meant only the white po|)uIation. "To 
promote the general welfare," referred to their own welfare exclu- 
sively. " To establish justice," was imderstood to be for their sole 
benefit as slaveholders, and the guilty abettors of slavery. This is 
demonstrated by other parts of the same instrument, and by their 
own practice under it. 

We would not detract aught from what is justly their due ; but it 
is as reprehensible to give them credit for ichat they did not possess, 
as it is to rob them of what is theirs. It is absurd, it is false, it is an 
insult to the common sense of mankind, to pretend that the Consti- 
tution was intended to embrace the entire population of tlie country 
under its sheltering wings; or that the parties to it were actuated by 
a sense of justice and the s[)irit of impartial liberty ; or that it needs 
no alteration, but only a new interpretation, to make it harmonize 
with the object aimed at by its a(lo|)tion. As truly might it be 
argued, that because it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence, 
that all men are created equal, and endowed with an inalienable 
right to liberty, therefore none of its signers were slaveholders, and 
since its adoption, slavery has been banished from the American soil ! 
The truth is, our fathers were intent on securing liberty to themselves, 
without being very scrupulous as to the means they used to accom- 
plish their purpose. They were not actuated by the spirit of univer- 
sal philanthropy ; and though in words they recognized occasionally 
the brotherhood of the human race, in practice they continually denied 
it. They did not blush to enslave a portion of tlieir fellow-men, 
and to buy and sell them as cattle in the market, while they were 
fighting against the oppression of the mother country, and boasting of 
their regard for the rights of man. Why, then, concede to them 
virtues which they did not possess? JVhy cling to the falsehood, that 
they ivere no respecters of persons in the formation of the government ? 

Alas ! that they had no more fear of God, no more regard for man, 
in their hearts! "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah [the 
North and South] is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, 
9 



8 

and the city full of perverseness; for they say, tlie Lord hath forsaken 
the earth, and tlie Lord seeth not." 

We proceed to a critical examination of the American Constitution, 
in its relations to slavery. 

In Article 1, Section 9, it is declared — "The migration or im- 
portation of such persons as any of the States now existing sliall 
think pro|)er to admit, sliall not be prohibited by the Congress, prior 
to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight: but a tax or duty 
may be imjjosed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for 
each person." 

In this Section, it will be perceived, the jiliraseology is so guarded 
as not to imi)ly, ex ntctssitate, any criminal intent or inhuman arrange- 
ment ; and yet no one has ever had the iiardihood or folly to deny, 
that it was clearly understood by the contracting parties, to mean 
that there should be no interference with the African slave trade, on 
the part of tlie general government, until the year 1808. Fortwenty 
years after the adoption of the Constitution, the citizens of the United 
States were to be encouraged and protected in the prosecution of 
that infernal traffic — in sacking and burning the hamlets of Africa 
— in slaughtering multitudes of the inoffensive natives on the soil, 
kidnapping and enslaving a still greater proportion, crowding them 
to suffocation in the holds of the slave ships, j)opulating the Atlantic 
witii their dead bodies, and subjecting the wretched survivors to all 
the horrors of unmitigated bondage ! This awful covenant was 
strictly fulfilled ; and though, since its termination. Congress has 
declared the foreign slave traffic to be [)iracy, yet all Christendom 
knows that the American flag, instead of being the terror of the Afri- 
can slavers, has given them the most am|)le protection. 

The manner in which the 9tli Section was agreed to, by the 
national convention that formerl the constitution, is thus frankly 
avowed by the lion. Luther Martin,* who was a prominent member 
of that body : 

"The Kastern St.ites, notwithstanding their aversion of slavery, (!) were very 
willing to indulge the t^outltern i^taUs at least witli a temporary liberty to prosecute 
the slave trade, provided llie Southern States would, in their turn, gratify them by 
laying no restriction on navigation acts ; and. after a very little time, the committee, 
by a ureat majority, agreed on a report, by which the general government was to be 
jirohibili'd from jireventing the importation of slaves for a limited lime ; and the 
restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted.'" 

Behold the iniquity of this agreement I how sordid were the mo- 
tives which led to it! what a [)rofligate disregard of justice and 
humanity, on the part of those who had solemnly declared the inalien- 
able right of all men to be free and equal, to be a self-evident truth! 

It is due to the national convention to say, that this section was not 
adopted " without considerable ojiposition." Alluding to it, Mr. 
Martin observe.-* — 

" It was Baici wv liad just nsstiincd a place among the independent nations 
in cons('<iuoiice of our ojiposition to tii<' atteniiitsot' Circat Brituiii to enslave 

• S[)eech l>eforc the Legislature of Maryland in 1787. 



us; that this opposition was srrounded upon the preservation of those 
rights to which God and nature has entitled us, not in /nirtiriilar, but in 
common tcitli all tin: rest vf m/inkind ; that we had appeah'd to the Supreme 
Being for his assistance, as the Gi)d of freedom, who could not but approve 
our efforts to preserve the rights which he had thus imparted to his crea- 
tures ; that now, when we had scarcely risen from our knees, from sujjpli- 
cating his mercy and protection in forming our government over a free 
people, a government formed pretondedly on the principles of liberty, and 
for its preservation, — in that government to have a provision, not only of 
putting out of its power to restrain and prevent the slave trade, even en- 
couraging that most infamous tratfic, by giving the States the power and 
influence in the Union in proportion as they cruelly and wantonly sported 
with tlie rights of their fellow-creatures, ought to be considered as a solemn 
mockerj^ of, and insult to, that God whose protection we liad thus implored, 
and could not fail to hold us up in detestation, and render us contemptible 
to every true friend of liberty in the world. It was said that national 
crimes can only be, and frequently are, punished in this world by national 
punishments^ and that the continuance of the slave trade, and thus giving it 
a national character, sanction, and encouragement, ought to be considered 
as justlj' exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of him who is 
equally the Lord of all, and who views with equal eye the poor Jlfricaa 
slave and his American master! (1) 

"It was urged that, by this system, we were giving the general govern- 
ment full and absolute power to regulate commerce, under which general 
power it would have a right to restrain, or totally prohibit, the slave trade : 
it must, therefore, appear to the world absurd and disgraceful to the last 
degree that we should except from the exercise of that power the only 
branch of commerce which is unjustifiable in its nature, and contrary to 
the rights of mankind. That, on the contrary, we ought to prohibit ex- 
pressly, in our Constitution, the further importation of slaves, and to 
authorize the general government, from time to time, to make such regu- 
lations as should be thought most advantageous for the gradual abolition 
of slavery, and the emancipation of the slaves already in the States. That 
slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a ten- 
dency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the 
sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates to tyranu}' and oppres- 
sion. It was further urged that, by this system of government, eve^y 
State is to be protected both from foreign invasion and from domestic 
insurrections; and, from this consideration, it was of the utmost importance 
it should have the power to restrain the importation of slaves, since in 
proportion as the number of slaves increased in any State, in the same 
proportion is the State weakened and exposed to foreign invasion and 
domestic insurrection ; and by so much less will it be able to protect itself 
against either, and therefore by so much, want aid from, and be a burden 
to, the Union. 

" It was further said, that, in this system, as we were giving the general 
government power, under the idea of national character, or national inter- 
est, to regulate even our weights and measures, and have prohibited all 
possibility of emitting paper money, and passing insolvent laws, Ac, it 
must appear still more extraordinary that we prohibited the government 
from interfering with the slave trade, than which nothing could more effect 
our national honor and interest. 

" These reasons influenced me, both in the committee and in the conven- 
tion, most decidedly to oppose and vote against the clause, as it now 
makes part of the system." * 

(1) How terribly and justly has this guilty natioa been -scourged, since these 
words were spoken, on account of islivery and the slave trade I 
* Secret Proceedings, p. 64. 



10 



Happy had it been for this nation, had these solemn considerations 
been heeded by the fianiers of the Cnstiiuiion ! Eiit for the s-,ke 
of securing son.e local advantages, they choose to do evil that good 
may come, and to make the end sanctify the means. They were 
willn.g to enslave others, that they n.ight secure their o^vn freedom. 
Ihey did this deed deliberately, «ith their eyes open, Mith all the 
lacts and consequences arising therefron. before them, in violation of 
all then- heaven-attes.ed declarations, and ir. atheistical distrust of the 
overruhng power of God. " The Eastern States were very willine 
to m^u/g-e the Southern States" in the unrestricted prosecution of 
then- piratical traflic, provided in return they could be ^rratified bv no 
restriction being laid on navigation acts!!— Had there been no other 
provision of the Constitution justly liable to objection, this one alone 
rendered the support of that instrument incom|.atible with the duties 
wn.ch men owe to their Creator, and to each other. It was the • 
poisonous infusion in the cup, which, though constituting but a 
very slight portion of its contents, perilled the life of every one 
who partook of it. ^ 

If it be asked to what purpose are these animadversions, since the 
clause alluded to has long since expired by its own lin.itation — we 
answer, that, ,f at any time the foreign slave trade could be constitu- 
honalbj prosecuted, it may yet be renewed, under the Constitution at 
the pleasure of Congress, whose prohibitory statute is liable to 'be 
reversed at any moment, in the lienzy of Southern opposition to 
emancM.ation. Jt is ignorautly suj.posed that the bargain was, that 
the traffic shoiM cmsc in 1808; but the only thing secured by it was, 
the right o[ Congress (not any obligation) to prohibit it at that period. 
If, therefore. Congress had not chosen to exercise that right, the tra/Rc 
rmght have been prolonged imkfmitebj, under the Constitution. The ri-dit 
to destroy any particular branch of commerce, implies the r\<-\n to 
re-estirbl.sh it. Irue, there is no probability that the African slave 
trade will ever again be legalized by the national government; but 
no credit is due the framers of the Constitution on this ground ; for 
while they threw around it all the sanction and j.rotection of the 
national character and power for twenty years, th,y sd no hounds to 
its continuance hij any positive constitutional prohibition. 

Again, the adoption of such a clause, and the faithful execution 
of It, prove what was meant by the words of the preamble— "to 
(orm a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
qui hty, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare 
and secure the blessings of libnty to ourselves and our posterity »_' 
namely, that the p.ar.ies to the Constitution regarde.l only their own 
rights and inlen-Ms, and never intended that its language shouhl be 
so interpreted as to interfere with slavery, or to make it unlawful for 
one portion of the people to enslave another, without an cipn.ss alter- 
tUion m that inslrinntnt, in the manner therein set forth. While there 
fore, the Constitution remains as it was originally adopted, they who 
Bweur to support it are bound to comply with all i,s provisions as ■• 



11 

matter of allegiance. For it avails notliing to say, that some of 
those provisions are at war witli the law of God and the rights of 
man, and therefore are not obligatory. Whatever may be their 
character, they are constitutionally obligatory ; and wlioever feels tliat 
he cannot execute them, or swear to execute them, without commit- 
ting sin, has no other choice left than to withdraw from the govern- 
ment, or to violate his conscience by taking on his lips an im(iious 
promise. The object of the Constitution is not to define uhnf is the 
laic of God, but WHAT IS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE — 
which will is not to be frustrated by an ingenious itioral interpreta- 
tion, by those whom ihey have elected to serve them. 

Article 1, Sect. 2, provides — "Representatives and direct taxes 
shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be includ- 
ed within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which 
shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 
including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, three-fflhs of all other persons." 

Here, as in the clause we have already examined, veiled beneath a 
form of words as deceitful as it is unmeaning in a truly democratic 
government, is a provision for tl>e safety, jMjrpetuity and augmenta- 
tion of the slaveholding power — a provision scarcely less atrocious 
than that which related to tlie African slave trade, and almost as 
afflictive in its o[)eration — a provision still in force, with no possi- 
bility of its alteration, so long as a majority of the slave States choose 
to maintain their slave system — a provision which, at the |)resent 
itime, enables the South to have twenty-five additional representatives 
in Congress on the score of property, while the North is not allowed 
Jo have one — a provision which concedes to the oppressed three- 
fifths of the political |>ower which is granted to all others, and then 
puts this |)ower into the hands of their o|>pressors, to be wielded by 
them for the more perfect security of tlieir tyrannous authority, and 
the complete subjugation of the non-slaveholding States. 

Referring to this atrocious bargain, Alexander Hamilton re- 
marked in the New York Convention — 

"The first thing objected to, is that clause which allows a representation 
for three-fifths of the negroes. Much has been said of the impropriety of 
representing men who have no will of their own : whether this is reason- 
ing, or declamation, (\ !) I will not presume to say. It is the unfortunate 
situation of the Southern States to hav(! a great part of their population, 
as well as properly, in blacks. The regulation complained of was one 
result o{ the spirit of ucciiiamodalinn which governed the Convention; and 
without this indulgence, NO UNION COULD POSSIBLY HAVE 
BEEN FORMED. But, sir, considerin<j some peculiar udrauiages which 
we derive from them, it is entirely JUST that they should be gratified. — 
The Southern States possess certain staples, - tobacco, rice, indigo, &c. — 
which must be capital objects in treaties of conunerce with foreign nations ; 
and the advantage which they necessarily procure in these treaties will 
be felt throughout the United States." 

If such was the patriotism, such the love of liberty, such the 
morality of Alexander Hamilton, what can be said of the character 



12 

of tliose who were far less conHj)iciJOus than liimgelf in securing 
AiiiericiUi iiidejieiuleiice, and in liaiuing tlie American Constitution ? 
Listen, now, to the o|)inioiis of John Qlincy Adams, respecting 
tlie coiit^titutional clause now under consideration : — 

" ' In outward show, it is a representation of persons in bondage ; in 
fact, it is a representation of their masters, — the oppressor representing' 
the oppressed.' — ' Is it in the compass of human imngination to devise a 
more perfect exeniphflcation of the art of conimittintf the lamb to the 
tender custod^^ of tlie wolf? ' — 'The represenfntive is tluis constituted, not 
the friend, agent and trustee of the person wliom he rcprrsents, but the 
most inveterate of his foes.' — 'It was one of the curses I'rom that Pandora's 
box, adjusted at the time, as usual, by a comprovtist, the whole advantage 
of which inured to the benefit of the South, and to aggravate the burdens 
of tile Nortli.' — 'If there be a parallel to it in human history, it can only 
be that of the Roman Emperors, who, from the days when Julius Caesar 
substituted a military dc^spotism in the place of a republic, among the 
offices which tlu'j^ always concentrated upon themsi'lves, was that of 
tribune of the people. A Roman Emperor tribune of the people, is an 
exact parallel to that feature in the Constitution of the United States 
which makes the master the representative of his slave.' — ' The Constitu- 
tion of the United States expressly prescribes that no title of nobility shall 
be granted by the United States. The spirit of this interdict is not a 
rooted anti])athy to the grant of mere powerless empty tiths, but to titles 
of Tiohililt/ ; to the institution of privileged orders of men. But what order 
of men under the most absolute of monarchies, or the most aristocratic of 
republics, was ever invested with such an odious and unjust privilege as 
that of the separate and exclusive representation of less than half a million 
owners of slaves, in tlie Hall of this House, in the Chair of the Senate, 
and in the Presidential mansion.''' — 'This investment of power in the 
owners of one species of property concentrated in the highest aufle rities 
of the nation, and disseminated tbrough thirteen of the l,went3'-six States 
of the Union, constitutes a privileged order of men in the community, 
more adverse to the rights of all, and more pernicious to the interests of 
the whole, than any order of nobility ever known. To call government 
thus constituted a democracy, is to insult the understanding of mankind. 
To call it an aristocracy, is to do injustice to that form of government. 
Aristocracy is the government of iJic btst. Its standard qualification for 
accession to power m vitril, ascirtained by popular election recurring at 
short intervals of time. If even that government is prone to degenerate 
into tyranny, what must be the character of that form of polity in which 
the standard qualification lor access to power is wealth in the possession 
of slaves.' It is doubly tainted with the infection of riches and of slavery. 
There is no mime in the lavii^vage iif imtioval jurisjirvdeuce that can dtfme 
it — no model in the records oi' ancient history, or in the political theories 
of Aristotle, with which it can be likened. It was introduced into the 
Constitution of the I'nited Stales by an equivocation — a re])resentation 
of property under the name of persons. Little ilid the members iif the 
Convention from the free States foresee what a sacrifice to Moloch was 
hidden under the mask of this ctmcession.' — 'The House of Representa- 
tives of the I'nited States consists of 22:1 members — all, by the letter of 
the Constitution, representatives only of pergons, as VXi of them really 
are ; but the other HH, equally re])resenting tiie pcrt.oiis of their constitu- 
ents, by wiiom they areelect(>d, also represent, under the name of «//ifr 
per.'^oiis, upwards of two and a half millions of .s/(/r<.s-, iiehl a.s the fini/ieilij 
of less than half a million of liie white constituents, and valued at twilve 
hundred millions of dollars. Each of these K*^ members rejiresents in tact 
the whole of that mass of associated wealth, and the jiersons nnd exclusive 
interests of its owners; all thus knit together, like the members of a 



13 

moneyed corporation, with a capital not of thirty-five or forty or fifty, 
but of twelve hundred millions of dollars, cxliibiting tiie most extrudrdi- 
nary exemplification of the anti-re])uhlican tendencies of associated wealth 
that the world ever saw.' — 'Here is one class of men, consisting of not 
more than one fortieth part of the whole people, not more tlian one-tliir- 
tieth part of the free population, exclusively devoted to their j>ersi)nal 
interests identified witli their own as slaveholders of tlie same associated 
wealth, and wielding by their votes, upon every question of government 
or of public policy, two-fifths ofthewliole power of the House. In the 
Senate of the Union, the proportion of tlie slaveholding power is yet 
greater. By the influence of slavery, in the States where the institution 
is tolerated, over their elections, no other than a slaveholder can rise to 
the distinction of obtaining a seat in the Senate; and tlius, of the 52 
members of the federal Senate, 26 are owners of slaves, and as effectively 
representatives of that interest as the 88 members elected by them to the 
House.' — ' By this process it is that all political power in the States is 
absorbed and engrossed by the owners of slaves, and the overruling policy 
of the States is shaped to strengtiien and consolidate their domination. 
The legislative, executive, and judicial authorities are all in their hands — 
the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of the black code of slavery 
— every law of the legislature becomes a link in the ciiain of tlie slave; 
every executive act a rivet to his hapless fate ; every judicial decision a 
perversion of the human intellect to the justification of wrong.' — ' Its recip- 
rocal operation upon the government of the nation is, to establish an arti- 
ficial majority in the slave representation over tliat of the free people, in 
the American Congress, and thereby to make the PRESERVATION, 
PROPAGATION, AND PERPETUATION OF SLAVERY THE 
VITAL AND ANIMATING SPIRIT OF THE NATIONAL GOV- 
ERNMENT.' —'The result is seen in the fact tliat, at tliis day, the 
President of the United States, the President of tlie Senate, the Speaker 
of the House of Representatives, and five out of nine of the Judges 
of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the United States, are not only citizens 
of slaveholding States, but individual slaveholders themselves. So are, 
and constantly have been, with scarcely an exception, all the memliers of 
both Houses of Congress from the slaveholding States ; and so are, in 
immensely disproportionate numbers, the commanding officers of the army 
and navy ; the officers of the customs; the registers and receivers of the 
land offices, and the post-masters throughout the slaveholding States. — 
The Biennial Register indicates the birth-place of all the officers employed 
in the government of the Union. If it were required to designate the 
owners of this species of property among them, it would bo little more 
than a catalogue of slaveholders.' " 

It is confessed by INIr. Adams, alluding to tlie national convention 
that framed the Constitution, tliat " the delegation from the free 
States, in tiieir extreme anxiety to conciliate the ascendency of tlie 
Southern slaveholder, did listen to a compromise hdween right and 
wrong — beiween freedom and skwery ; of the ultimate fruits ol' whicii 
they had no conception, hut which already even now is urging the 
Union to its inevitable ruin and disf^olution, by a civil, servile, foreign, 
and Indian war, all coiiihiiied in one ; a war, the essential issue of 
which will be between freedom and slavery, and in which the un- 
hallowed standard of slavery will be the dese<!rated banner of the 
North American Union — that banner, first unfurled to the breeze, 
inscribed with the ^■elf-evident truths of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." 

2 



14 

Hence, to swear to support the Constitution of tlie United States, 
as it is, is to make " a conipromise between riglit and wrong," aniJ to 
wage war against buinan liberty. It is to recognize and honor as 
republican legislators, incorrigible vien-sleulers, merciless tyrants, 
BLOOD THIRSTY ASSASSINS, who legislate with deadly weap- 
ons about their persons, such as yjistols, daggers, and bowie-knives, 
with which they threaten to murder any Northern seinitor or repre- 
sentative who shall dare to stain their honor, or interfere with their 
rights ! They constitute a banditti more fierce and cruel tliau any 
whose atrocities are recorded on the pages of history or romance. 
To mix with them on terms of social or religious fellowship, is to 
indicate a low state of virtue ; but to think of admini.^tering a free 
government by their co-operation, is nothing short of insanity. 

Article IV., Section 2, declares, — "No person held to service or 
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
such service or labor ; but shall be delivered up on claim of the 
party to whom such service or labor may be due." 

Here is a third clause, which, like the other two, makes no men- 
tion of slavery or slaves, iti express terms ; and yet, like them, was 
intelligently framed and mutually understood by the parties to the 
ratification, and intended both to protect the slave system and to 
restore runaway slaves. It alone makes slavery a national institu- 
tion, a national crime, and all the i)eo|)Ie who are not enslaved, the 
body-guard over those whose liberties have been cloven down. This 
agreement, too, has been fulfilled to the letter by the North. 

Under the Mosaic dispensation it was im))eratively commanded, — 
•' Thou shah not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped 
from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with tlice, even among 
you, in that jilace which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where 
it liketh him best: thou slialt not oppress him." The warning which 
the |)iophct Isaiah gave to ojiiJres.'sing JMoub was of a similar kind : 
"Take counsel, execute judgment ; make thy shadow as the night in 
the midst of the noon-day ; hide the outcasts ; bewray not him that 
waudereth. Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moah ; be thou a 
covert to them from the face of the spoiler." The prophet Obadiah 
brings the following charge against treacherous Edom, which is jire- 
risely ai)plicablc to this guilty nation : — "For thy violence against 
thy brother .Jacob, shame shall come over thee, and thou shalt be cut 
ofl' for ever. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the 
day that the strangers carried away cai)live his forces, and foreigners 
entered into his gates, and cast lots upon .krusalem, tren thou witst 
as one of them. But thou sliouldst not have looked on the day of thy 
brother, in the day that he became a stranger; neither sliouldst thou 
have rejoiced over the children of Ju<lah, in the day of their destruc- 
tion ; neither sliouldst thou have eiioken proudly in the diiy of dis- 
trrsH ; neither shoiildst ihcui have stood in the cross-ivajf, to cut off those 
of his that did escape ; m.-ither siioiildsl thou have delivired vp those of 
his thai did remain, in the day of distress." 



15 

How exactly descriptive of this boasted republic is the impeach- 
ment of Edom by the same prophet! "Tlie pride of thy heart hath 
deceived thee, thou whose liul)itulion is iiigh; that saith in thy iieart, 
Who sliall bring me down to the ground ? Though thou exalt tliyself 
as the eagle, and tliough tliou set thy nest among the stars, tlience 
will I bring thee down, saith the Lortl." Tlie emblem of American 
pride and power is the eagle, and on her banner she Ims mingled 
stars with its stripes. Her vanity, her treachery, her oppression, her 
self-exaltation, and her defiance of the Ahnighty, far stn-pass the 
madness and wickedness of Edom. What shall be her pimishment ? 
Truly, it may be affirmed of the American people, (who live not un- 
der the Levitical but Christian code, and whose guilt, therefore, is 
the more awful, and their condemnation the greater,) in the language 
of another prophet — "They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt 
every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both 
hands earnestly, the [)rince asketh, and the judge asketli for a re- 
ward ; and the ereat tnan, he uttereth his mischievous desire : so they 
tvrap it up." Likewise of the colored inhabitants of this land it may 
be said, — "Tliis is a people robbed and spoiletl ; they are all of 
them snared in holes, and they are hid in |)rison-houses ; they arc for 
a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, anfl none saith. Restore." 

By this stipulation, the Northern States are made the iiunting 
ground of slave-catchers, who may pursue their victims with blood- 
hounds, and capture them witli impunity wherever they can lay their 
robber hands upon them. At least twelve or fifteen thousand runa- 
way slaves are now in Canada, exiled from their native land, because 
they could not find, throughout its vast extent, a single road on which 
they could dwell in safety, in consequence of this provision of the Con- 
stitution'? How is it possible, then, for the advocates of liberty to 
sujtjiort a government which gives over to destruction one-sixth part 
of the whole ])opulation ? 

It is denied by some at the j)resent day, that the clause winch 
has been cited, was intended to apply to rimaway slaves. This indi- 
cates either ignorance, or folly, or something worse. James IMadi- 
sox, as one of tiie framers of tlie Constitution, is of some authority 
on this point. Alluding to that instriunent, in the Virginia conven- 
tion, he said : — 

"Another cln.use secures us that property whhli we now possess. At pre- 
sent, if any slave elopes to those States whi'ro slaves are fri'c, he becomes 
emancipated by their taics ; for the laws of tlie States are vncharitahje (!) to 
one another in this respect; but in this constitution, 'No person iicld to 
service or labor in one State, under tiie laws tiiereof, shall, in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein, be discliarged from sucii service or labor, 
but sliall be delivered up on claim of the ])arty to whom such servioi' or 
labor maybe due. THIS CLAUSE WAS EXPRESSLY INSERTED 
TO ENABLE THE OWNERS OF SLAVES TO RECLALM THEM. 
This is a better security than any that note exists. No power is given to the 
general government to interfere with respect to the property in slaves no"' 
held by the States." 



16 

In the same convention, alluding to the same clause, Gov. Ran- 
dolph said : — 

" Every one knows that slaves are held to service or labor. And, when 
authority is jriven to owners of slaves to vindicate their property, can it be 
supposed they can be d»>prived of 't ? If a citizen of this State, in conse- 
quence of this clause, can take his runaway slave in ]Maryland, can it be 
seriously thought that, aiter taking him and bringing him home, he could 
be made free r " 

It is ohjected, that slaves are held as property, and therefore, as 
the clause refers to persons, it cannot mean slaves. But this is crit- 
icism against fact. Slaves are recognized not merely as piojjerty, 
but also as persons — as having a mi.Yed character — as combining 
the Inunan with the brutal. This is |)aradoxicaI, we admit ; but 
slavery is a jiaradox — the American Constitution is a paradox — the 
American Union is a paradox — (lie American Government is a pa- 
radox ; and if any one of these is to be repudiated on that ground, 
they all are. That it is the duty of the friends of freedom to deny 
the binding aulliority of them all, and to secede from them all, we 
tlislinctly affirm. After the independence of this country had been 
achieved, the voice uf God exhorted the peo|)le, saying, " Execute 
true judgment, and show mercy and compassion, every man to his 
brother : and opi)ress not tlie widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, 
nor the jjoor ; and let none of you imagine evil against liis hrc.tlier 
in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pulled aw.iy li.e 
shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear ; yea, 
ihey made their hearts as an adamant stone." " Shall I not visit 
for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on 
such a nation as tins?" 

Wiiatever tloubt may have rested on any honest mind, respecting 
the njeaning of the clause in relation to persons held to service or 
labor, nmst have been removed by the unanimous decision of the 
Su|)reme Court of the United States, in the case of Prigg versus 
The State of Pennsylvania. By that decision, any Southern slave- 
catcher is empowered to seize and convey to the Soulh, without 
hindrance or molestation on the part of the State, and without 
any legal process duly obtained and served, any person or persons, 
irrespective of ca^te or complexion, whom he may choose to 
claim as runaway slaves ; and if, when thus surprised and attacked, 
or on their arrival South, they cannot prove by legal witnesses, that 
they are freemen, their doom is sealed! Hence the free colored 
popuhilion of the North are specially liable to become the victims of 
this terrible jiower, and all the other inhabitants are at the mercy of 
prowling kidnaiijierK, because there are multitudes of white as well 
as black slaves on Southern jilantations, and slavery is no longer 
fastiilious with regard to the color of its prey. 

A« soon as that ap|)alling decision of llie Supremo Court was 
cmmeiated, in the name of the Constitution, the pi-ople of the North 
vhould have risen in masse, if lor no other cause, and declared the 



17 

Union at an end ; and they would have done so, it' they had not lost 
their manhood, and their reverence for justice and liherty. 

In the 4th Sect, of Art. IV., tiie United States guarantee to |)rotect 
every State in tFie Union "against (hmestic violencty By tlie 8th 
Section of Article I., congress is ein{)0\vered "to jjrovide for caUing 
forth the militia to execute tiie laws of the Union, suppress insurrec- 
tions, and repel invasions." These provisions, however strictly they 
may a|)ply to cases of disturbance among the white population, were 
ado|)ted with special reference to the slave population, for the pur- 
pose of keeping them in their chains by the combined military force 
of the country ; and were these repealed, and tlie South left to man- 
age her slaves as best she could, a servile insurrection would ere 
long be the consequence, as general as it would unquestionably be 
successful. Says Mr. Madison, respecting these clauses : — 

" On application of the legislature or executive, as the case may be, the 
militia of the other States are to be called to suppress domestic insurrec- 
tions. Does this bar the States from calling forth their own militia? 
No : but it gives them a supplemenlary security to suppress insurrections 
and domestic violence." 

The answer to Patrick Henry's objection, as urged against the 
constitution in the Virginia convention, that there was no f)ovver left 
to the States to quell an insurrection of slaves, as it was wholly vested 
in congress, George Nicholas asked: — 

" Have they it now .' If they have, does the constitution take it away .' 
If it does, it must be in one of those clauses which have been mentioned 
by the worthy raembor. The first part gives the general government power 
to call them out when necessary. Does this take it away from the States i* 
No ! but it :rlves an. additional, securitij ; for, beside the power in the State 
a-overnment^to use their own militia, it will be the duty of the ireneral iron- 
eni ,.ent to aid them WITH THE STRENGTH OF THE UNION, when 
called for." 

This solemn guaranty of security to the slave system, caps the 
climax of national barbarity, and stains with human blood the gar- 
ments of all the people. In consequence of it, that system has mul- 
tif.lied its victims from five hundred thousand to nearly three mil- 
lions a vast amount of territory iias been purchased, in order to 

give it extension and perpetuity — several new slave States have been 
admitted into the Union — the slave trade has been made one of the 
great branches of American commerce — the slave population, though 
over-worked, starved, lacerated, branded, maimed, and subjected to 
every form of deprivation and every species of torture, have been 
overawed and crushed, — or, whenever they have attempted to gain 
tlieir liberty by revolt, they have been shot down and (luelled by the 
.strong arm of the national government; as, for exanqtie, in the case 
of NiU Turner's insurrection in Virginia, when the naval and military 
forces of the government were called into active service. Cuban 
bloodhounds have been purchased with the money of the peojile, 
and imported and used to hunt slave fugitives among the everglades 



18 

of Florida A merciless warfare has been waged for the extermina- 
tion or exuMlsic. of the Florida Indians, because they pave succor to 
those poor hunted fu^itiv•es - a warfare which has cost the nation 
several thousand lives, and forty millions of dollars. But the cata- 
logue of enorn.ities is too long to be recapitulated in the present 

address. , i tvt .1 

We have thus demonstrated that the compact between the ^orth 
and tlie South endjraces every variety of wrong and outrage,— is at 
war with God and man, cannot be innocently sujjported, and deserves 
to be immediately annulled. In behalf of the J^ociety vn Inch we rep- 
resent, we call upon all our fellow-citizens, who believe it is ngnt to 
obey God rather than man, to declare themselves peaceful revolu- 
tionists, and to unite with us under the stainless banner ot Liberty, 
havim' for its motto — " equal rights for all — NO LMON 
WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!" 

h is pleaded that the Constitution provides for its own amend- 
mont ; aad we ought to use the elective franchise to effect this ob- 
ject True, there is such a proviso ; but, until the amendment be 
made, that instrument is binding as it stands. Is it not to violate 
every moral instinct, ami to sacrifice principle to expediency, to 
ar-ue that we may swear to steal, oppress and murder by x%holesale, 
because it may be necessary to do so only for the t.u.e beu.g, and 
b.'cause there is some remote probability that the instrun.ent «h.ch 
recniires that we should be robbers, oppressors and murderers, may 
at some future day be amended in these particulars ." Let us not 
palter with our consciences in this manner — let us not deny that 
the compact was conceived in sin and brought forth in muputy — 
let ns not be so dishonest, even to prouiote a good object, as to inter- 
pret the Constitution in a manner utterly at variance with the inten- 
tions and arrangements of the contracting parties; but, confessing 
the -uill of the nation, acknowledging the dreadful specifications m 
the bond, washing our hands in the waters of repentance from all 
further participation in this criminal alliance, and resolving that we 
will sustain none other than a free and righteous government, let us 
glory in the name of revolutionists, unfurl the banner ot disunion, 
and consecrate our talents and moans to tlie overthrow ot all that is 
tvrannical in the land, — to the establishment of all that is lice, just, 
true and holy, — to the triumph of universal love and peace. 

If in utter disrecard of the historical tacts which have been cited, 
it is'still asserted, that the Constitution needs no amendment to make 
it a free instrument, adapted to all the exigencies of a tree people, 
and was never intended to give any strength or countenance to the 
slave system — the indignant spirit of insulted Liberty replies : — 
" What though the assertion he true ? Of what avail is a mere piece 
of parchment? In itself, though it be written all over with words 
of truth and lieedom — though it. provisions be as impartial and jnst 
as words can express, or the imagination paint- though it be as pure 
us the gospel, and breathe only the spirit of Heaven — it is power- 



19 

less ; it has no executive vitality ; it is a lifeless corpse, even though 
beautiful in death. 1 ani faniisliiiig for lack of bread ! How is my 
appetite relieved by holding u[t to my gaze a painted loaf? I am 
manacled, wounded, bleeding, dying ! What consolation is it in 
know, that they who are seeking to destroy my life, profess in words 
to be my friends ?" If the liberties of the people have been betray- 
ed — if judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar 
off, and truth has fallen in the streets, and equality cannot enter — 
if the princes of the land are roaring lions, the judges evening wolves, 
the people light and treacherous persons, the priests covered with 
pollution — if we are living under a frightful despotism, which scoffs 
at all constitutional restraints, and wields the resources of the nation 
to promote its own bloody purposes — tell us not that the forms of 
freedom are still left to us ! " Would such lameness and submission 
have freighted tlie May-Flower for Plymouth Rock? Would it have 
resisted the Stamj) Act, the Tea Tax, or any of those entering wedges 
of tyranny with which the British government sought to rive the 
liberties of America? The wheel of the Revolution would have rusted 
on its axle, if a s[)irit so weak liad been the only power to give it 
motion. Did our fathers say, when their rights and liberties were 
infringed — ^^ Jfhy, u-Iiat is (lone cannot be undone. That is the first 
thought." No, it was the last thing they thought of: or, rather, it 
never entered their minds at ail. They sprang to the conclusion at 
once — '■'JVhai is done shall he undone. That is our first and only 
thought." 

'• Is water running in our veins ? Do we remember still 
Old Plymouth Rock, and Lexington, and famous Bunker Hill 7 
The debt we owe our fathers' graves ? and to the yet unborn, 
Whose heritage ourselves must make a thing of pride or scorn ? 

Gray Plymouth Rock hath yet a tongue, and Concord is not dumb 5 
And voices from our fathers' graves and from the future come : 
They call on us to stand our ground — they charge us still to be 
Not only free from chains ourselves, but foremost to make free ! " 

It is of little consequence who is on the throne, if there be behind 
it a power mightier than the throne. It matters not what is the 
theory of the government, if the practice of the government be unjust 
and tyrannical. W^e rise in rebellion against a despotism incompa- 
rably more dreadful than that which induced the colonists to take up 
arms against the mother country ; not on account of a three-penny 
tax on lea, but because fellers of living iron are fastened on the limbs 
of millions of our countrymen, and our most sacred rights are tram- 
pled in the dust. As citizens of the State, we appeal to the State in 
vain for protection and redress. As citizens of tlie United States, we 
are treated as outlaws in one half of the country, and the national 
government consents to our destruction. We are denied the right 
of locomotion, freedom of speech, the right of petition, the liberty of 



20 

the press, the rij^ht peaceably to assemble together to protest against 
oppression and plead for liberty — at least in tliirteen States of the 
Union. If we venture, as avowed and unflinching abolitionists, to 
travel South of Mason and Dixon's line, we do so at the peril of our 
lives. W we would escape torture and death, on visiting any of the 
slave States, we must stifle our conscieniious convictions, bear no 
testimony against cruelty and tyranny, suppress the struggling emo- 
tions of humanity, divest ourselves of all letters and |)apers of an anti- 
slavery character, and do homage to the slaveholding power — or 
run the risk of a cruel martyrdom! These are ajjpalling and unde- 
niable facts. 

Tliree millions of the American pcoi)le are crushed under the 
American Union ! They are held as slaves — traflicked as merchan- 
dise — registered as goods and chattels! The government giveg 
them no protection — the government is their enemy — the govern- 
ment keeps them in chains! There they lie bleeding — we are 
prostrate by their side — in their sorrows and sufferings we partici- 
pate — their stripes are inflicted on om* bodies, their shackles are 
fastened on our limbs, their cause is ours! The Union which grinds 
them to tlie dust rests uj)on us, and with them we will struggle to 
overthrow it! The Constitution, which subjects them to ho|)eless 
bondage, is one that we catuiot swear to support ! Our motto is, 
"NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS," either religious or i)o- 
litical. They are the fiercest enemies of mankind, ami the bitterest 
foes of God ! We sei)arate from them not in anger, not in malice, 
not for a selfish purpose, not to do them an injury, not to cease 
warning, exhorting, reproving them for their crimes, not to leave the 
perishing bondman to his fate — O no ! But to clear our skirts of 
innocent blood — to give the oppressor no countenance — to signify 
our abhorrence of injustice and cruelty — to testify against an un- 
godly compact — to cease striking hands with thieves and consenting 
with adulterers — to make no compromise with tyranny — to walk 
worthily of our high profession — to increase our moral i)ower over 
the nation — to obey God and vindicate the gospel of his Son — to 
hasten the downfall of slavery in America, and throughout the 
world ! 

We are not acting under a blind impulse. We have carefully 
counted the cost of this warfare, and are prepared to meet its conse- 
quences. It will subject us to reproach, i)ersecuiion, infamy — it 
will prove a fiery ordeal to all who shall pass through it — it may 
cost us our lives. We shall be ridiculed as fools, scorned as vision- 
aries, braniied as disorganizers, reviled as madmen, threatened and 
perhaps punished as traitors. Hut we shall bide our time. Whether 
safety or jtcril, whether victory or d<'feat, whetlicr life <)r death he 
ours, believing that om- feet an; planted on an eternal foumlalion, 
that our position is sublime and glorious, that our faith in CJotI is v^. 
tional and steadfast, that we have exceeding great ami precious pro- 
Djiscs on which to rely, that we auf. in the right, we shall not 



21 

falter nor be dismayed, " tliougli the earth be renioved, and though 
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea," — though our 
ranks be thinned to tlie number of " three hundred men." Freemen ! 
are you ready for the conflict ? Come what may, will you sever the 
chain that binds you to a slavehohling government, and declare your 
independence? Up, then, with the banner of revolution! Not to 
shed blood — not to injure the person or estate of any oppressor — 
not by force and arms to resist any law — not to countenance a ser- 
vile insurrection — not to wield any carnal weai)ons! No — ours 
must be a bloodless sti'ife, excepting our blood be shed — for we 
aim, as did Christ our Iea<ier, not to destroy men's lives, but to save 
them — to overcome evil with good — to conquer through siifiering 
for righteousness' saKe — to set the captive free by the potency ot 
truth! 

Secede, then, from the government. Submit to its exactions, but 
pay it no allegiance, and give it no voluntary aid. Fill no offices 
under it. Send no senators or representatives to the national or 
State legislature; for what you cannot conscientiously perform your- 
self, vou cannot ask another to perform as your agent. Circulate a 
declaration of DISUNION FROM SLAVEHOLDERS, throughout 
the country. Hold mass meetings — assemble in conventions — nail 
your baimers to the tiiast! 

Do you ask what can be done, if you abandon the ballot-box? 
What did the crucified Nazarene do without the elective franchise ? 
What did the apostles do ? What did the glorious army of martyrs 
and confessors do ? What did Luther and his intrepid associates 
do ? What can women and children do? What has Father Mathew 
done for teetotalism ? What has Daniel O'Connell done for Irish 
repeal ? "Stand, having your loins girt about with truth, and having 
on the breast-plate of righteousness," and arrayed in the w hole armor 
of God ! 

The form of government that shall succeed the present govern- 
ment of the United States, let time determine. It would be a waste 
of time to argue that question, until the people are regenerated and 
turned from their iniquity. Ours is no anarchical movement, but 
one of order and obedience. In ceasing from oppression, we estab- 
lish liberty. What is now fragmentary, shall in due time be crystal 
lized, and shine like a gem set in the heavens, for a light to all coin 
ing ages. 

Finally — we believe that the effect of this movement will be, — 
First, to create discussion and agitation throughout the North ; and 
tliese will lead to a general perception of its grandeur and import- 
ance. 

Secondly, to convulse the slumbering South like an earthquake, 
and convince her that her only alternative is, to abolish slavery, or 
be abandoned by that power on which she now relies for safety. 

Thirdly, to attack the slave power in its most vulnerable point, and 
♦0 carry the battle to the gate. 



22 

Fourthly, to exalt the moral sense, increase the moral power, and 
inviirorate the moral constitution of all who heartily es[)ouse it. 

We reverently believe that, in withdrawing iVoni the Acnerican 
Union, we have the God of justice with us. We know that we have 
our enslaved coiuitrymen with us. We are confident that all free 
hearts will be with us. We are certain that tyrants and their abet- 
tors will be against us. 

In behalf of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Sla- 
very Society, 

WM. LLOYD GARRISON, Prcsidait. 

Wendelt. Phillips, > „ , . 

Maria Westo.v Chapman, ) 

Boston, May 20, 1844. 



LETTER mOM FRA.NCIS JACKSO^^ 

Boston, 4th July, 1844. 
To His Excellency George A^. Briggs : 

Sir — .Many years since, I received from the Executive of the 
Commonwealth a commission as Justice of the Peace. I have held 
the office that it conferred upon me till the present time, and have 
found it a convenience to myself, and others. It might continue to 
be so, could I consent longer to hold it. But paramount considerations 
forbid, and 1 herewith transmit to you my commission, respectfully 
asking you to accept my resignation. 

While I deem it a duty to myself to take this step, I feel called 
on to state the reasons that influence me. 

In entering u|)on the duties of the office in question, I comi>Iied 
with the rc(piirements of the law, by taking an oath " to support the 
Constitution of the United Strifes." I regrf;t that I ever took that oath. 
Had I then as matm-ely considered its full import, and the obligations 
under which it is imderstood, and meant to lay those who take 
it, as 1 have done since, I certainly never woidd have taken it, 
seeing, as I now do, that the Constitution of the United States con- 
tains provisions calculated and intended to foster, cherish, uphold 
and perpetuate slavery. It j)ledges the country to guanl and protect 
the slave system so long as the slavelioldiug Slates choose to retain 
it. It regards the slave code as lawful in the States which enact it. 
Still more, "it has done that, which, until its adoption, was never 
before done for AlVicaii slavery. It took it out of its former category 
of muiii<-i|ial law ami local life, adopted it as a national institution, 
epreatl around it the broail and buHicient shield of national law mwJ 



23 

thus gave to slavery a national existence." Consequently, llie oath to 
support the Constitution of tlie United States is a solemn ])rotiiiye to 
do that which is morally wrong ; tliat which is a violation of the 
natural rights of man, and a sin in the sight of God. 

I am not, in this matter, constituting myself a judge of others. 1 
do not say that no honest man can take such an oath, and abide by 
it. I only say, that /would not now deliberately take it; and that, 
having inconsiderately taken it, I can no longer suffer it to lie upon 
my soul. I take hack the oath, and ask you, sir, to take back the 
commission, which was the occasion of my taking it. 

I am aware that my course in this matter is liable to be regarded 
as singular, if not censurable ; and I must, therefore, be allowed to 
make a more s{)ecific statement of those pi-ovis!ons of the ConstitiUio7i 
which support the enormous wrong, the heinous sin of slavery. 

The very first Article of the Constitution takes slavery at once 
under its legislative protection, as a basis of representation in the 
popular branch of the National Legislature. It regards slaves under 
the description "of all other ^crsoJis " — as of only three-fifths of the 
value of free persons ; thus to appearance undervaluing them in com- 
parison with freemen. But its dark and involved phraseology seems 
intended to blind us to the consideration, that those underrated slaves 
are merely a basis, not the source of representation ; that by the laws 
of all the States where they live, they are regarded not as persons, 
hut as things ; that they are not the constituency of the representative, 
but his property ; and that the necessary effect of this provision of 
the Constitution is, to take legislative power out of the hands of 
men, as such, and give it to the mere possessors of goods and chat- 
tels. Fixing upon thirty thousand persons, as the smallest number 
that shall send one member into the House of Representatives, it pro- 
tects slavery by distributing legislative power in a free and in a slave 
State thus: To a congressional district in South Carolina, containing 
fifty thousand slaves, claimed as the property of five hundred whites, 
who hold, on an average, one hundred apiece, it gives one Represen- 
tative in Congress ; to a district in Massachusetts containing a popu- 
lation of thirty thousand five hundred, one Representative is assigned. 
But inasmuch as a slave is never permitted to vote, the fifty thousand 
persons in a district in Carolina form no j)art of "the constituency;" 
that is found only in the five hundred free persons. Five hundred 
freemen of Cai'olina could send one Representative to Congress, 
while it would take thirty thousand five hundred freemen of Massa- 
chusetts, to do the same thing : that is, one slaveholder in Carolina 
is clothed hy the Constitution with the same political power and 
influence in the Rei)resentatives Hall at Washington, as sixty Massa- 
chusetts men like you and me, who " eat their bread in the sweat of 
their own brows." 

According to the census of 1830, and the ratio of re|)resentation 
based upon that, slave property added twenty-five members to the 
House of Representatives. And as it has been estimated, (as an 



24 

approximation to the truth,) that the two and a half million slaves in 
the Uuited States are held as property by about two hundred and 
fiAy thousand persons — giving an average of ten slaves to each 
slavehohler, those twenty-five Representatives, each chosen, at most, 
by only ten thousand voters, and prol)ahly by less than tln-ee- 
fourths of liiat nurubor, were the representatives, not only of the two 
huiidred and fifty thousand jiersons who chose them ; but oi property 
which, five years ago, when slaves were lower in market, than at 
present, were estimated, by the man who is now the most prominent 
candidate for the Presidency, al twelve hundred millions of dollars 
— a sum, which, by the natural increase of five years, and the 
enhanrod value resulting from a more prosperous state of the |jlant- 
ing interest, cannot now be less than filteen hundred millions of dol- 
lars. All this vast amount of ])roperty, as it is "peculiar," is also 
identical in its character. In Congress, as we have seen, it is ani- 
mated by one spirit, moves in one mass, and is wielded with one 
aim ; and when we consider that tyranny is always timid, and des- 
potism distrustful, we see that this vast money power would be false 
to itself, did it not direct all its eyes and hands, and put forth all its 
ingenuity and energy, to one end — self-i)rotect}on and self-perpetu- 
ation. And this it has ever done. In all the vibrations of the ])oIiti- 
cal scale, whether in relation to a Bank or Sub-Treasury, Free Trade 
or a Tariff, this imn)ense power has moved, and will continue to 
move, in one mass, lor its own protection. 

While the weight of the slave irifluence is thus felt in the House 
of Representatives, "in the Senate of the Union," says John Qiiincy 
Adams, "the j)roportion of slaveholding power is still greater. By 
the influence of slavery in the States where the institution is tolerated, 
over their elections, no other than a slaveholder can rise to the dis- 
tinction of obtaining a seat in the Senate; and thus, of the fift^-two 
mendiers of the federal Senate, twenty-six are owners of slaves, and 
arc as effectually representatives of that interest, as the eighty-eight 
members elected by them to the House." 

The dominant power which the Constitntion gives to the slave 
interest, as thus seen and exercised in the Legislative Halls of our 
nation, is efpially obvious and obtrusive in every other department 
of the Nalioiud {government. 

In the KUcloral colleges., the same cause produces the same effect 
— the same jjowcr is wielded for the same jiurpose, as in the Hulls 
ofCongress. Kven the preliminary nominntinv' conventions, before 
they dare name a candidate for the highest oflico in the uift of the 
j»eo|ih', nuist ask of the Genius of slavery, to what votary she will 
show herself propitious. This very year, we see both the great 
])olitical parties doing homage to the slave power, by nominating 
each a slaveholder for the chair of State. The candidate of one 
party declares, " I should have o])posed, and would continue to 
opi)08e, any scheme whatever of erjiaiicipation, citlier gradiuil or im- 
mediate;" and ailds, " It is not true, and 1 rejoice that it is not true, 



that either of the two great parties of this country has any design or 
aim at abolition. I should deeply lament it, if it were true." * 

The other party nominates a man who says, " I have no hesitation 
in declaring that I am in favor of the immediate re-anne.\alion of 
Texas to the territory and jrovernment of tlie United States." 

Thus both the political parties, and the candidates of both, vie 
with each other, in offering allegiance to the slave power, as a con- 
dition precedent to any hope of success in the struggle for the execu- 
tive chair ; a seat that, for more than three-fourthe of the existence of 
«ur constitutional government, has been occupied by a slaveholder. 

The 8an)e stern despotism overshadows even the sanctiiaries of 
justice. Of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, five are slaveholders, and of course, must be faithless to their 
own interest, as well as recreant to the power that gives them i)lace, 
or must, so far as they are concerned, give both to law and constitu- 
tion such a construction as shall justify the language of John Quincy 
Adams, when he says — "The legislative, executive, and judicial 
authorities, are all in their hands — for the preservation, pro|)agation, 
and perpetuation of the black code of slavery. Every law of the 
legislature becomes a link in the chain of the slave; every executive 
act a rivet to his ha|)less fate ; every judicial decision a perversion of 
the human intellect to the justification of wrong." 

Thus by merely adverting but briefly to the theory and the prac- 
iJL'al eflTect of this clause of the Constitution, that I have sworn to 
support, it is seen that it throws the political power of the nation 
into the hands of the slaveholders ; a bod}' of men, which, however 
it may be regarded by the Constitution as " persons," is in fact and 
practical eflfect, a vast moneyed corporation, bound together by an 
indissoluble unity of interest, by a common sense of a common dan- 
ger ; counselling at all times for its connnou protection; wielding 
4he whole power, and controlling the destiny of the nation. 

If we look into the legislative halls, slavery is seen in the chair of 
the presiding officer of each, and controlling the action of both. 
Slavery occupies, by prescriptive right, the Presidential chair. The 
paramount voice that conies from the temple of national justice, 
issues from the lips of slavery. The army is in the hands of slavery, 
and at her bidding, must eiicamp in the everglades of Florida, or 
march from the Missouri to the borders of Mexico, to look after her 
interests in Texas. 

The navy, even that part that is cruising off the coast of Africa, to 
suppress the foreign slave trade, is in the hands of slavery. 

Freemen of the North, who have even dared to lift up their voice 
against slavery, cannot travel through the slave States, but at the 
peril of their lives. 

The representatives of freemen are forbidden, on the floor of Con- 

* Henry Clay's speech in the United States Senate in 1839, and confirmed at 
Raleigh, N. C. 1844. 



26 

grcss, to remonstrate against tl)e encroachments of slavery, or to pray 
that she would let lier poor victims go. 

1 renounce my alle^'iance to a Constitution that enthrones such a 
power, wielded lor tlie |)m-po8e of depriving me of my rights, of rob- 
bing my countrymen of tlieir liberties, and of securing its own pro- 
tection, support and perpetuation. 

Pat;.-<ing by tltat clause of tlie Constitution, which restricted Con- 
gress for twenty years, trom passing any law against the African 
slave trade, and which gave authority to raise a revenue on tiie stolen 
sons of Africa, 1 come to that part of the fourth article, which guar- 
antees [)rolection ixgainst ^^ domtstic violence,''^ and whieh i)ledges to 
the Soutli the nfilitary force of the country, to protect the masters 
against their insurgent slaves : binds us, and our chitdren, to shoot 
down our fellow-countrymen, who may rise, in emulation of our rev- 
olutionary fathers, to vindicate tlieir inalieiiable "right to life, liberty^ 
and the pursuit of happiness," — this clause of the Constitution, 1 say 
distinctly, I never wilt support. 

That part of the Constitution whidi provides for the s^^n•reIld'er of 
fugitive slaves, 1 never have supported and never will. I will join it> 
no slave-hunt. My door shall stand open, as it has long stood, for 
the panting and trembling victim of the slave-linnter. When I shut 
it against him, may God shut the door of his niercy against me f 
Under this clause of the Constitution, and designed to carry it info, 
effect, slavery has demanded that laws should be passect, and of sudV 
a character, as have left the free citizen of the North without protec- 
tion for his own liberty. The question, whether a man seized in a 
free State as a slave, is a slave or not, the law of Congress (h>es not 
allow a jury to determine : but refers it to the decision of a Judge of 
a United States' Court, or even of the humblest State magistrate, it 
may be, upon the testitnony or affi(favit of the party most deeply in- 
terested to support the claim. JJy virtue of this law, freemen have 
been seized and dragged into perpetual slavery — and should I be 
seized by a slave-hunter in any part of the country where 1 am not 
personally known, neither the Constitution nor laws of the United 
States would shield me from the same destiny. 

These, sir, are the s|>ecific |)arts of the Constitution of the United 
States, which in my opinion are essentially vicious, hostile at once to 
the liberty and to the morals of the nation. And these are the principal 
reasons of my refusal any longer to acknowledge my allf;:ianre to it» 
and of my tietermination to revoke my oath to supjxirt ii. 1 cannot, 
ill order to keeji the law of man, break the law of Goil, or solemnly 
call him to witness my promise that 1 will break it. 

It is true that the Conslituiion provides for its own ami'udment, 
and that by this process, all the guarantees of Slavery may be ex- 
punged. IJut it will be time enough to swear to su|iport it when 
this is «lone. It cannot be right to do so, until these aii.eiidments 
are made. 

It is also true that the framers of the Constitution did studiously 



•27 

keep the words "Slave" and "Slavery" from its face. But to uo 
our constitutional fathers justice, while they forehore — from very 
fihame — to give the word "Shivery" a place in tlie Constitution, 
they did not forbear — again to do them justi(;e — to give |)iace in it 
to the //lUJS". They were careful to vvrnj) up the idea, and the s^uh- 
gtance of Slavery, in the clause for the surreiider of the fugitive, 
though they sacrificed justice in doing so. 

There is abundant evidence that this clause touching "persons heM 
to service or labor," not only operates practically, under tiic judiria 
construction, for the protection of the slave interest; but that it was 
intended so to operate by the framers of the Constitution. The high- 
est judicial authorities — Chief Justice Shaw, of the Supreme Court 
of Massachusetts, in the Latimer case, and Mr. Justice Story, in the 
Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Prigg vs. Tfu 
Slate of Pennsylvania, — tell us, I know not on what evidence, that 
without this " compromise," this security for Southern slaveholder!*, 
"the Union could not have been formed." And there is still higher 
evidence, not oidy that the framers of the Constitution meant by this 
clause to protect slavery, but that they did this, knowing that slavery 
was wrong. Mr. Madison* informs us that the clause in question, as it 
came out of the hands of Dr. Johnson, the chairman of the "conunit- 
tee on style," read thus: "No person legally held to service, or labor, 
in one State, escaping into another, shall," &c., and that the word " le- 
gally " was struck out, and the words " under the laws thereof" insert- 
ed after the word "State," in compliance with the wish of some, who 
thought the term legal equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery was 
leo^al " in a moral yieu'." A conclusive proof that, although future gen- 
erations might apply that clause to other kinds of "service or labor," 
when slavery should have died out, or been killed off by the young 
spirit of liberty, vvlsich was tJien awake and at work in the land ; still, 
slavery was what they were wrapping u|) in "equivocal" words; and 
wrapping it up for its protection and safe keeping: a conclusive lu-oof 
that the framers of the Constitution were more careful to protect 
themselves in the judgment of coming generations, from the charge of 
ignorance, than of sin ; a conclusive proof that they knew that slavery 
was not "legal in a moral view," that it was a violation of the moral 
law of God ; and yet knowing and confessing its immorality, they 
dared to make tins stipulation for its support and defence. 

This language may sound harsh to the ears of those who think it 
a part of their duty, as citizens, to maintain that whatever the patriots 
of the Revolution did, was right; and who hold that we are bound 
to do all the iniquity that they covenanted for us that we shoidd do. 
But the claims of truth and right are paran»o»mt to all other claims. 

With all our veneration for our constitutional fathers, we must ad- 
mit, for they have left on record their own confession of it, — thai 

ia this part of their work they intended to hold the shield of their pro- 

* Madison Papers, p. 1589. 



28 

tection over a wrong, knowing that it was a wrong. They made a 
" compromise " wliirh they had no right to make — a compromise 
of moral principle for the sake of what they probably regarded as 
"political expediency." I am sure they did not know — no man 
could know, or can now tneasure, the extent, or the consequences of 
the wrong that they were doing. In the strong language of John 
Quincy Adams,* in relation to the article fixing the basis of rej)resen- 
tation, " Little did the members of the Convention, from the free 
States, imagine or foresee what a sacrifice to Moloch was hidden 
under the mask of this concession." 

I verily believe that, giving all due consideration to the benefits 
conferred upon this nation by the Constitution, its national unity, its 
swelling masses of wealth, its power, and the external prosperity of 
its multiplying millions ; yet the moral injury that has been done, by 
the countenance shown to slavery by holding over that tremendous 
sin tiie shield of the Constitution, and thus breaking down in the eyes 
of the nation the barrier between right and wrong; by so tenderly 
cherishing slavery as, in less than the life of man, to multiply her 
children from half a million to nearly three millions ; by exacting 
oaths from those who occupy prominent stations in society, that they 
will violate at once the rights of man and the law of God ; by substi- 
tuting itself as a rule of right, in place of the moral laws of the uni- 
verse; — thus in efl^ect, dethroning the Almighty in the hearts of this 
people and setting up another sovereign in his stead — more than 
outweighs it all. A melancholy and monitory lesson this, to all time- 
serving and temporising statesmen! A striking illustration of the 
impoliaj of sacrificing rigid to any considerations of expediency ! Yet, 
what better than the evil effects that we have seen, could the authors 
of the Constitution have reasonably expected, from the sacrifice of 
right, in the concessions they made to slavery ? Was it reasonable 
in them to expect that after they had introduced a vicious element 
into the very Constitution of the body politic which they were calling 
into life, it would not exert its vicious energies? Was it reasonable 
in them to expect that, after slavery had been corrupting the public 
morals for a whole generation, their children would have too much 
virtue to use for the defence of slavery, a jiower which they them- 
selves bad not too much virtue to g-i'tie ? It is dangerous for the sov- 
ereigiy |)ower of a State to license immorality; to bold the shield 
of its protection over any thing that is not "legal in a n)oraI 
view." Bring into your house a benumbed vijjcr, and lay it down 
upon your warm hearth, and soon it will not osk you into which room 
it may crawl. Let Slavery once lean upon tlie supporting arm, and 
bask in the fostering smile of the State, and you will soon see, as we 
now see, both her minions and her victims multiply apace till the 
politics, the morals, the liberticH, even the religion of the nation, are 
brought completely under her control. 

* Sec his Report on the Mnssachusetts Resolutions. 



29 

To me, it appears that the virus of slavery, introduced into the 
Constitution of our body |)oiitic, by a few slight punctures, lias now so 
pervaded and poisoned the wliole systeui of our National Government, 
that literally there is no health in it. The only remedy that I can 
see for the disease, is to be found in the dissolution of the patient. 

The Constitution of the United States, both in theory and prac- 
tice, is so utterly broken down by the influence and effects of slavery, 
so imbecile for the highest good of the nation, and so powerful for 
evil, that I can give no voluntary assistance in holding it up any 
longer. 

Henceforth it is dead to me, and I to it. I withdraw all profession 
of allegiance to it, and all my voluntary eflJbrts to sustain it. The 
burdens that it lays upon me, while it is hehl up by others, I shall 
endeavor to bear patiently, yet acting with reference to a higher law, 
and distinctly declaring, that while I retain my own liberty, I will be 
a party to no compact, which helps to rob any other man of his. 
Very respectfully, your friend, 

FRANCIS JACKSON. 



MR. WEBSTER'S SPEECH 

AT NIBLO'S GARDENS. 

"We have slavery, already, amongst us. The Constitution found 
it among us ; it recognized it and gave it SOLEMN GUARANTIES. 
To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound, in honor, in 
justice, and by the Constitution. All the stipulations, contained iu 
the Constitution, in favor of the slavehoJding States which are already 
in the Union, ought to be fulfilled, and so far as depends on me, shall 
be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit, and to the exactness of their 
letter." ! ! ! 



EXTRACTS FROM 

JOHN Q. ADAMS'S ADDRESS 

AT NORTH BRIDGEWATER, NOV. 6, 1844. 

The benefits of the Constitution of the United States, were the 
restoration of credit and reputation, to the country — the revival of 
commerce, navigation, and ship-building — the acquisition of the 
means of discharging the debts of the Revolution, and the protection 
and encouragement of the infant and droo|)ing manufactures of the 
country. All this, however, as is now well ascertained, was insuffi- 



k 



30 

cient to propitiate the rulers of the Southern States to the adoption 
of tlie Constitution. Wliat tliey specially wanted was protection. — 
Protection from the powerful and savage tribes of Indians within 
their borders, and who were harrassing them with the most terrible 
of wars — and |)rotection frou) their own negroes — protection from 
tlieir insurrections — [jrotection from their escape — j)rotection even 
to the tnulo hy which they were brought into the country — protec- 
tion, shall I not blusii to say, protection to the very bondage by \\ hich 
they were held. Yes! it cannot be denied — tiie slaveholding lords 
of tiie South prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Consti- 
tution, three special provisions to secure the perpetuity of their do- 
minion over their slaves. The first was the iunnunity for twenty 
years of preserving the African slave-trade ; the second was the stip- 
ulation to surrender fugitive slaves — an engagement positively pro- 
hibited by the laws of God, delivered from Sinai ; and thirdly, the 
exaction fatal to the principles of popular representation, of a repre- 
sentation for slaves — for articles of merchandise, under the name of 
persons. 

The reluctance with which the freemen of the North submitted to 
the dictation of these co'iditions, is attested by the awkward and 
ambiguous language in which they are expressed. The word slave 
is most cautiously and fastidiously excluded from the whole instru- 
ment. A stranger, who should come from a foreign land, and read 
the Constitution of the United Slates, would not believe that slavery 
or a slave existed within the borders of our country. There is not a 
word in the Constitution apparcntli) bearing upon the condition of 
slavery, nor is there a provision but would be suscei)tible of practical 
execution, if there were not a slave in the land. 

The delegates from South Carolina and Georgia distinctly avow- 
ed that, without this guarantee of protection to their ]»roperty iu 
slaves, they would not yield their assent to the Constitution ; and the 
freemen of the North, reduced to the alternative of dejtarting from 
the vital [)rinciple of their liberty, or of forfeiting the Union itself, 
averted their faces, and with tremijling hand subscribed the bond. 

Twenty years passed away — the slave markets of the South were 
eatm-ated with the blood of African bondage, and from miduight of 
the 31st of December, 1807, lutt a slave from Africa was sulfered 
ever more to be introduced upon our soil. IJiit the internal traflic 
was still lawful, and the hnrdins; States soon reconciled themselves to 
a prohibition which gave them the monopoly of the interdicted trade, 
and they joined the full chorus of reprobation, to ])unish with death 
the slave-trader from Africa, while they cherished and shielded and 
enjoyed the precious profits of the American slave-trade exclusively 
to themselves. 

IV'rhaps this unhappy result of their concession had not altogether 
escaped the foresight of the freemen of the North ; hut their intense 
anxiiMy n)r the preservation of the whole Union, ami the habit alrea- 
dy formed of yielding to the somewhat peremptory and overbearing 



31 

tone which the relation of master and slave welds into tlie nature of 
the lord, prevailed with them to overlook this consideration, the in- 
ternal slave-trade having scarcely existed while that witii Africa had 
been allowed. But of one consequence which has followed from 
the slave representation, pervading the whole organic structure of the 
Constitution, they certainly were not prescient; for if they had been, 
never — no, never would tiiey have consented to it. 

The representation, ostensibly of slaves, under the name of per- 
sons, was in its operation an exclusive grant of power to one class of 
proprietors, owners of one species of property, to the detriment of 
all the rest of the community. This species of property was odious 
in its nature, held in direct violation of the natmal and inalienable 
rights of man, and of the vital principles of Clirislianity ; it was all 
accumulated in one geographical section of the country, and was all 
held by wealthy men, comparatively small in numbers, not amount- 
ing to a tenth part of the free white population of the States in which 
it was concentrated. 

In some of the ancient, and in some modern republics, extraordi- 
nary political power and privileges have been invested in the owners 
of horses ; but then these privileges and these powers have been 
granted for the equivalent of extraordinary duties and services to the 
community, required of the favored class. The Roman knights con- 
stituted the cavalry of their armies, and the bushels of rings gather- 
ed by Hannibal from their dead bodies, after the battle of Cannae, 
amply prove that the si)ecial powers conferred upon them were no 
gratuitous grants. But in the Constitution of the United States, the 
political power invested in the owners of slaves is entirely gratuitous. 
No extraordinary service is required of them ; they are, on the con- 
trary, themselves grievous burdens upon the community, always 
threatened with the danger of insurrections, to be smothered in the 
blood of both parties, master and slave, and always depressing the 
condition of the poor free laborer, by conqjetition with the labor of 
the slave. The property in horses was the gift of God to man, at 
the creation of the world; tlie property in slaves is property acquir- 
ed and held by crimes, diftering in no moral aspect from the pillage 
of a freebooter, and to which no lapse of time can give a prescriptive 
right. You are told that this is no concern of yours, and that the 
question of freedom and slavery is exclusively reserved to the consi- 
deration of t!ie separate States. But if it be so, as to the mere ques- 
tion of right between master and slave, it is of tremendous concern 
to you that this little cluster of slave-owners should possess, besides 
their own share in the representative hall of the nation, the exclusive 
privilege of appointing two-fifths of the wiiole number of the repre- 
sentatives of the people. This is now your condition, under that 
delusive ambiguity of language and of principle, which begins by 
declaring the representation in the popular branch of the legislature 
a representation of persons, and then |)rovides that one class of per- 
Bons shall have neither i)art nor lot iii the choice of their represents- 



k 



32 

lives ; but their elective franchise shall be transferred to their mas- 
ters, and the oppressors shall represent the oppressed. The same 
perversion of the representative principle pollutes the composition of 
the colleges of electors of President and Vice President of the United 
States, and every department of the government of the Union is thus 
tainted at its source by the gangrene of slavery. 

Fellow-citizens, — with a body of men thus composed, for legisla- 
tors and executors of the laws, what will, what nmst be, what has 
been your legislation ? The numbers of freemen constituting your 
nation are much greater than those of the slaveholding States, bond 
and free. You have at least three-fifths of the whole j)opulation of 
the Union. Your influence on the legislation and the administration 
of the government ought to be in the proportion of three to two. — 
But bow stands the fact ? Besides the legitimate portion of influ- 
ence exercised by the slaveholding States l)y the measure of their 
numbers, here is an intrusive influence in every department, by a re- 
presentation nominally of persons, but really of property, ostensibly 
of slaves, but effectively of their masters, overbalancing your superi- 
ority of nmnbers, adding two-filths of supplementary power to the 
two-fifths fairly secured to them by the com|)act, CONTROLLING 
AND OVERRULING THE WHOLE ACTION OF YOUR GOV- 
ERNMENT AT HOME AND ABROAD, and wari)iiig ii to the 
sordid |)rivate interest and oppressive policy of 300,000 owners 
of slaves. 

From the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
States, the institution of domestic slavery has been becoming more 
and more the abhorrence of the civilized world. But in proportion 
as it has been growing odious to all the rest of mankind, it has been 
sinking deeper and deeper into the affections of the holders of slaves 
themselves. The cultivation of cotton and of sugar, unknown in the 
Union at the establishment of the Constitution, has added largely to 
the pecuniary value of the slave. And the suppression of the Afri- 
can slave-trade as piracy upon pain of death, by securing the benefit 
of a monopoly to the virtuous slaveholders of the ancient dominion, 
has tinned her heroic tyrannicides into a comnuinity of slave-breed- 
ers for sale, and converted the land of George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Richard Ilemy Lee, and Thomas Jtfllrson, into a great bar- 
racoon — a cattle-show of human beings, an emporiuui, of which the 
staple articles of merchandise are the flesh and blood, the bones and 
•inewB of immortal man. 

Of the increasing abomination of slavery in the uidiought hearts of 
men at the lime when the Constitution of the United States was 
forjiied, what clearer proof could be desired, than that the very same 
year in which that charter of the land was issued, the Congress of 
the Confederation, with not a tithe of the |)()wers given by the pcojile 
to the Congress of the new compact, actually abolished slavery for 
•ver throughout the whole Northwestern territory, without a remon- 
Btrance or a murmur. But in the articles of confederation, there was 



32 

no guaranty for the property of the slaveholder — no double repre- 
sentation of him in the Federal councils — no power of taxation — 
no stipuhition for the recovery of fugitive slaves. But wiien the 
powers of government came to be delegated to the Union, the South 

— that is, South Carolina and Georgia — refused their subscription 
to the parchment, till it should be saturated with the infection of 
slavery, which no fumigation could purify, no quarantine could ex- 
tinguish. The freemen of the North gave way, arid the deadly venom 
of slavery was infused into the Constitution of freedom. Its first con- 
sequence has been to invert the first principle of Democracy, that the 
will of the majority of numbers shall rule the land. By means of 
the double representation, the minority command the whole, and a 
KNOT OF SLAVEHOLDERS GIVE THE LAW AND PRE- 
SCRIBE THE POLICY OF THE COUNTRY. To acquire this 
superiority of a large majority of freemen, a persevering system of 
engrossing nearly all the seats of power and place, is constantly for 
a long series of years pursued, and you have seen, in a period of 
fifty-six years, the Chief-magistracy of the Union held, during forty- 
four of them, by the owners of slaves. The Executive departments, 
the Army and Navy, the Supreme Judicial Court and diplomatic 
missions abroad, all present the same spectacle ; — an immense ma- 
jority of power in the hands of a very small minority of the people 

— millions made for a fraction of a few thousands. 

From that day (1830,) SLAVERY, SLAVEHOLDING, SLAVE- 
BREEDING AND SLAVE-TRADING, HAVE FORMED THE 
WHOLE FOUNDATION OF THE POLICY OF THE FEDERAL 
GOVERNMENT, and of the slaveholding States, at home and 
abroad ; and at the very time when a new census has exhibited a 
large increase upon the superior numbers of the free States, it has 
presented the portentous evidence of increased influence and ascend- 
ancy of the slaveholding power. 

Of the prevalence of that power, you have had continual and con- 
clusive evidence in the suppression for the space of ten years of the 
right of petition, guarantied, if there could be a guarantee against 
slavery, by the first article amendatory of the Constitution. 



